Soumya Kalluri

Founder @ dwij-Upcycled in India

About

Founder-dwij, a Mumbai based startup with a focus on upcycling of textile waste (Certified by Ministry of Textiles, Government of India & Incubated by NSRCEL, IIM Bangalore). I am a Mechanical Engineer with a Masters degree in Commercial Vehicle Technology from Germany. The experience in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) while working at John Deere, Germany triggered my interest in the area of sustainability. Further, my work experience at Godrej & Boyce gave an exposure to experiment with various materials at its end-of-life. The end-of-life of any LCA to me is the most important phase, as this is the phase where a material can be recovered or lost. In present times, due to fast fashion, majority of textiles are incinerated or dumped into landfills. 'dwij' was founded to address the ills of fast fashion, with a mission to manufacture & promote circular lifestyle products made from upcycled post consumer garments and post industrial garment waste. I firmly believe that sustainability is not only about the environment and economy, but also about being fair to all the stakeholders in the process including the customer.

Country

India

City

Mumbai

Industry

Apparel & Fashion

Skill

Research Skills, Impact Evaluation, PowerPoint, Microsoft Office, AutoCAD, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word, Matlab, Customer Service, ANSYS, C++, Solid Edge, Windows, English, CATIA, Mechanical Engineering, SimaPro, Life Cycle Assessment, Sustainability, Environmental Impact Assessment

Experience

Founder

dwij-Upcycled in India

2018-2 - Present · 8 yrs 8 mos

Mumbai Area, India

“dwij”, a Mumbai-based social enterprise, means ‘second life’ in Sanskrit and has the vision to deliver an ethically made low waste upcycled product to every household. We are a proud “upcycled in India” brand that believes in a people-centered and earth-centered approach. We rescue post-consumer jeans that would otherwise end up in a landfill or get incinerated, to make utility accessories such as bags, totes, handmade toys, handmade jewellery, home decor, etc. Our jewellery, toys and home decor are mostly hand done. We have an in-house manufacturing setup and a network of women from self-help groups who need additional income to support their families.

Lead Research Analyst

Impaakt

2020-8 - 2022-11 · 2 yrs 4 mos

A famous quote says, “If you can't measure it, you can't improve it”. I was part of the team that is revolutionizing how we measure things. Each research analysis note that I wrote gave me a better understanding of what sustainability means. These perspectives influence the way I do my business too.

Researcher at Innovation and Design Centre

Godrej & Boyce Mfg. Co. Ltd.

2016-8 - 2017-9 · 1 yr 2 mos

Vikhroli, Mumbai

Material analysis and cataloging of industrial waste, life cycle assessment for direct use of these materials.

Intern

thinkstep

2016-5 - 2016-8 · 4 mos

Mumbai Area, India

Sector Benchmarking, LCA Modeling with the use of GaBi Software

Master Thesis Student

John Deere

2015-10 - 2016-3 · 6 mos

Kaiserslautern, Germany

Comparative Life Cycle Assessment of two John Deere Self-Propelled Forage Harvester by using SimaPro for different harvesting lengths of cut Analysis of emissions obtained from the production of the machine and the usage of the machine Representative of John Deere at "International VDI Wissensforum Conference" and "AgriTechnica 2015", at Hannover, Germany

Intern

John Deere

2015-7 - 2015-9 · 3 mos

Kaiserslautern, Germany

Life Cycle Assessment of a John Deere Self-Propelled agricultural Sprayer for spraying of pesticides in two countries, France and Germany Comparative analysis of emissions from manufacturing of pesticides and usage of pesticides with the data obtained from BASF along with the analysis of emissions from production of the machine, usage of the machine for its life cycle Paper presentation on "Life cycle assessment of a self-propelled agricultural sprayer" at International Commercial Vehicle Technology Symposium, at TU Kaiserslautern, Germany